New York blends the gift of privacy with the excitement of participation. Here is New York, E.B.White, 1949 [Taschen, "365 Day-by-Day New York Calendar"]

Step 61 - Find Your Lifestyle
As I said in one of my recent posts – the world has changed and the way we live has changed. I honestly think it’s time to reevaluate some ideas and solutions about the life we want to l...

Do you even want to get married?
I’ve been thinking a lot about marriage recently (not about my own), because suddenly I spend a lot of time talking to married guys (just as friends). And I started to come...

Choose Your Own Relationship
I’m single so – naturally – I do think about guys and relationships. I’ve been thinking a lot of what type of a guy would actually make me want to be in a relationship. An...

What’s The Best Dating Advice?
There are plenty of advisors on the dating scene – there are videos and articles about every aspect of dating, with all these great pieces of advice: “What to do on a date,&rd...

Step 56 - Getting You Off The Hook.
I’ve done some thinking recently and tried to figure out the basic way people come up with an excuse. It’s a broad topic, but I’ve mostly experienced one response from variety o...

Williamsburg Is Over
Summer’s almost here, so I decided to take a walk in Williamsburg, and it just reassured me that… thinks are really over for this neighborhood. I moved to Greenpoint (a sister neighb...

Where is love?
Love has been on my mind recently (and probably has been unconsciously for a while now) and I started thinking about where to find it. I know it’s a pretty odd thing (...

A Real Feast: Cream Cheese bagel

You’ve landed in NYC, you won the battle with your jet lag and you go “on the town” as soon as the sun rises. You’re hungry and giddy when you think of the feast that awaits you. Yes, you’ll find cuisine from all over the world here – and possibly get dizzy from the variety of choice.

But before you try out something exotic like sushi (already popular in Poland), begin with something I always start my stay with (before I move on to sushi, as well as Korean, Ethiopian or Indian cuisine). Have a cream cheese bagel. Natives of Kraków know it well: their pretzel is bagel’s ancestor (and it made its journey here from Kraków). The American cousin differs from the Polish one: its denser and a bit smaller. It’s already available in larger cities of Poland.

For many New Yorkers a bagel is the food they cannot start their day without. You’ll see it held by the Wall Street people, by women both elegant and not, as well as by tired workers. Why is it that this rather simple food is still making waves? Because it fulfills all the needs of a New Yorker: it’s quick, cheap, filling and – most of all – can be eaten while on the run.

You’ll buy it from street vendors, at Dunkin’ Donuts and in all places where breakfast is being served. The prices start at $1,50. I recommend the cinnamon one. Have it toasted.

There’s more to bagels than just cinnamon or cream cheese. Other kinds are sprinkled with poppy seeds and sesame; there’s a blueberry and dark-bread bagel. You can spread something on them or have the insides filled with veggies (don’t forget to slice the filled bagel first, unless you want to have the stuffing drip down your outfit).